Defund Planned Parenthood, Because Killing Children is Not Health Care

Last week, the United States Supreme Court heard arguments in Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic. At issue is whether individual states can deny Medicaid funds to abortion industry organizations like Planned Parenthood.

According to the Alliance Defending Freedom, whose lawyers are arguing the case, this started back in 2018 when South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster directed that no Medicaid money could go to groups that perform abortions. The governor reasoned, “The payment of taxpayer funds to abortion clinics, for any purpose, results in the subsidy of abortion and the denial of the right to life.” 

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Using government cash for abortion not only offends the moral sensibilities of millions of Americans but, for 45 years now, the Hyde Amendment has “prohibit[ed] covered funds to be expended for any abortion or to provide health benefits coverage that includes abortion.” With his directive, McMaster was eliminating an end run around the clear intent of this law. As one supporter put it, “States should be free to use taxpayer dollars in accordance with their own state laws and priorities. No citizen should be forced to fund facilities that perform life-ending and medically fraught procedures like abortion.” 

Despite the overarching moral concerns at the heart of this case, the oral arguments centered on particular words and concerns. Specifically, because existing law specifies that Medicaid can go to “any qualified provider” the patient chooses, in question is whether South Carolina is required to allow funds to go to Planned Parenthood as a medical provider. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Amy Coney Barrett, from either side of the ideological aisle, expressed hesitation about South Carolina’s claims, to different degrees, that the law does not contain “rights-creating” language. In reply, ADF attorney John Bursch pointed out that “the fact that the 12 of us can have such a robust conversation about whether this statute is mandatory or not, whether it’s rights-creating or not, demonstrates that the rights-creating language is ambiguous, not clear and explicit.” 

Given the over 140 federally approved pregnancy support centers in South Carolina, it’s difficult to conclude that denying funds to Planned Parenthood will harm the women in the state. That claim rests on Planned Parenthood’s dubious claim that killing children is healthcare. It was on that basis that the ADF took the state to court in the first place. After numerous rulings and appeals, the Supreme Court will now, in a sense, decide whether an organization like Planned Parenthood, whose primary business is death and so-called gender care, counts as a qualified medical practice. 

According to the interim president of Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, they are. Thus, as she put it, “Government officials should never block people from getting health care or be able to decide which doctor you can or cannot see. We will never stop fighting for our patients and their right to choose their trusted health care provider.” 

But Planned Parenthood’s “healthcare” is primarily and overwhelmingly abortion. Thus, their business interests are about unrestrained access to abortion. As ADF put it: 

Planned Parenthood performed 392,715 abortions between Oct. 1, 2021, and Sept. 30, 2022, representing a 5 percent increase from the previous year and an increase of over 70 percent in just two decades. At the same time, Planned Parenthood’s legitimate medical services have all decreased in recent years. From 2022 to 2023, preventative care visits fell by 31 percent. 

And, they don’t need the money. As ADF president Kristen Waggoner wrote: 

Planned Parenthood received $3.2 billion in direct public funding. That’s on top of the hundreds of millions more it receives from private donors. And since the year Roe v. Wade was reversed, it’s had a fundraising boom, amassing over $2.5 billion in net assets. 

Even though this Court has been friendly to the cause of life, technicalities matter greatly. Please pray for these judges looking at the legal side of this national evil. Just as the journey was long for abolitionists in the nineteenth century, so it is for those today who are committed to seeing abortion not merely made illegal but unthinkable.

LifeNews Note: John Stonestreet writes for BreakPoint.org. This article was originally posted here.

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